Office 2011 for Mac: Applying Styles to Text Boxes

In Office 2011 for Mac, a style is a collection of formatting settings. If you select a text box or shape and then click the Ribbon’s Format tab, in the Text Styles group you may see the icon or the gallery. You see the gallery if the window is sized wide enough to display it. Otherwise, you see the icon.

The Text Styles gallery in the Text Styles group has these goodies for you:

Text Styles gallery: Click a style in the gallery to apply a style (PowerPoint and Excel).

Scroll arrows: At the left and right ends of the gallery, click the arrows to scroll (PowerPoint and Excel).

Submenu: To display the full drop-down gallery, click the submenu near the bottom-center of the Text Styles gallery in PowerPoint and Excel, or click the Quick Styles button in Word. Click a style to apply its format to a selected text box or text.

Applies to Selected Text:When you choose from this section, the format is applied only to the characters you have selected.

Applies to All Text in the Shape.

Clear WordArt: Removes applied text style formatting.

More Options: Displays the Format Text dialog.

To the right of the Text Styles gallery are a couple more neat buttons:

Fill button: Displays the colors palette. It offers a shortcut to the Format Text Effects dialog.

Line button: Displays the colors palette, which has these submenus:

Line Effects: A shortcut to the Format Text dialog.

Weights: Choose line weights from a submenu.

Dashed: Choose line styles from a submenu.

Effects button: A submenu with lots of fun options.

These settings apply to the text inside the box, not to the box itself.